Strigino Airport(IATA: GOJ, ICAO: UWGG) is the international airport serving the city of Nizhny Novgorod, Russia. It is located on the outskirts of the city's Avtozavodsky District, 14 km (8.5 mi) southwest of city centre. Strigino is responsible for serving the 3,281,000 residents of the Nizhny Novgorod Oblast.
Strigino was officially exploited on July 23, 1923, as a domestic airport. Nizhny Novgorod International Airport is one of the oldest airports in Russia. In 2013, Strigino served 917,424 passengers, a +22.8% increase from the passenger traffic of 2012. Nizhny Novgorod's airport served 777,134 (+29.6%) passengers as of September 1, 2014. Strigino is one of the top 25 busiest airports in Russia. Its extraordinarily rapid increase in passenger traffic rate (≤+20.0% annually) is speculated to bring it to top 10 busiest airports in Russia by 2020.
In 2011 HC Airports of Regions won their bid on the investment project into Nizhny Novgorod International Airport. In 2012, certain renovations were made in order to more efficiently exploit the existing facility whilst the new one is being built.
In June 2014, the construction of new terminal started. It is supposed to be opened by December 2015 and be able to handle around 300 passengers per hour. The second terminal will be built after the World Cup in 2018, hosted by Nizhny Novgorod among others, and the aforementioned railway station is planned to be constructed during that time as well. The new terminal was opened on December 29, 2015 as the first flight, from Moscow, was directed there. Airport authority plans to redirect all the domestic flights to the new terminal by February 2016 and all the international flights by April 2016.
